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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-15 Daily Xml
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DEVELOPMENT (REGULATED TREES) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 June 2009. Page 2694.)

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (17:54): The Development (Regulated Trees) Bill is the same bill I introduced into this parliament some two years ago. It has been reintroduced by the Hon. Dennis Hood. Members will recall that that legislation sat before this parliament for a very long time and, in the end, it lapsed. The fact that it lapsed was not through any wish on the part of the government to proceed with the bill; rather, there was an unwillingness to proceed with this bill by a majority of members of the council. However, given that it has been reintroduced by the Hon. Dennis Hood, I am delighted to indicate that the government will support the bill.

When that bill was introduced and there were discussions on it I introduced a number of amendments, and I have tabled those amendments again. Those amendments arose from the lengthy discussions that we had on this bill in order to improve it. I am delighted that the bill has come back. Of course, we support our own bill with the amendments that have been tabled. Indeed, I look forward to the rest of the parliament addressing this bill speedily, and I am even prepared to facilitate government time for this bill, given that it is a government bill, to proceed.

Having said all that, I will not go through the reasons for this, but I indicate that the issue of how one deals with significant or regulated trees is a very complex issue. There are many ways in which one can gauge the significance of trees. As we know, trees come in all ages, shapes and sizes and it is not easy in legislation to determine exactly the best way of dealing with every situation that can arise. However, I believe that the bill, which I introduced two years ago and which the Hon. Dennis Hood has now put forward, is a significant improvement on the situation that we have at the moment.

As I said in relation to a question that I was asked a week or two ago by the Hon. Dennis Hood, there are some complexities with the legislation. The original legislation that was moved by the Hon. Diana Laidlaw, I think, dealt with the situation (and it was supported by the then opposition and now government) that exists in many of the leafier suburbs of Adelaide where there were those river red gum trees, in particular, or large trees that were indigenous to the area and had been around for a long time. It was meant to deal with those trees and, of course, the classification of a significant tree depended on the size of the tree—whether it was two metres in girth a metre up from the ground—but it also had to contribute to the biodiversity of the area. I think that was meant to distinguish those large indigenous trees, such as the river red gums we see in the eastern suburbs, in particular, from the sorts of trees that people plant in their backyards which grow very quickly; they may be eastern state eucalypts or Tasmanian blue gums or they could be various varieties of pine trees and the like.

Often people will go to a nursery and buy an inappropriate tree and plant it too close to their house. The tree reaches a certain size and it starts cracking the house, but people have been caught by the legislation and are unable to deal with it because the trees have reached the dimensions that make them significant and councils have required, in some cases, very expensive arborist reports before people can deal with that situation.

This legislation originally tried to deal with the situation where some councils had interpreted the original legislation more intensely than was ever intended, I believe, by the parliament. Indeed, in many of these cases where councils have made decisions, when they have been challenged in the ERD Court, the court (as I indicated in answer to that question) has I think pretty much upheld, as it should, the wishes of the parliament, in terms of the interpretation of that legislation. However, I believe that some councils have tended to use the legislation much more tightly and much less flexibly than was ever intended by the parliament. That is just one of the issues.

On the other hand, we have also seen cases where people have shown contempt for the law and have just ignored some of the provisions of this act to either destroy or cut down trees. While through this new concept of a regulated tree we were trying to make it easier to deal with those problem trees that were not indigenous to the area and were not appropriately placed, at the same time, we did want to deal with a situation where someone had come in, there was a significant tree on their property and they wanted to get rid of it because it was inconvenient and they had, basically, shown contempt for the law.

So, under the provisions in this act (and, certainly, through the amendments as well), that situation would be dealt with by the use of make good orders so that, if someone deliberately ignored and tried to circumvent the provisions of the act, in as much as they are there to protect those significant indigenous trees, they would not be able to get away with it as they can at the moment.

So, it really had two parts to it. I think it was an attempt, on my part, to try to balance up this debate and make it more workable, along the lines of which I think was parliament's original intention when the first amendments were made to the significant tree provisions of the Development Act back in the 1990s.

With those comments, the government supports this bill. I have tabled the amendments that we introduced last time. I would say, as perhaps a caveat, that because our negotiation with local government—and there was extensive negotiation at the time—is now some two years old it might well be opportune over the seven weeks' break that we have to consider whether there is some benefit in updating this, as I will be meeting with the Local Government Association during the break.

If any new provisions or evidence come up relating to the operation of the legislation, we would be pleased to look at that over the break. We believe that the legislation, with the amendments—as I said, it was the subject of very lengthy consideration—does seek to deal with some of the problems that are faced in the interpretation of the Development Act as it relates to significant trees.

As I said at the time, I do not believe that we will ever get perfect legislation in this area because it is extremely complex but, nonetheless, the changes are important, and the government will do whatever it can to facilitate the passage of the legislation. I would hope that everyone in the council would be prepared to deal with this matter very speedily when we come back here in September after the break.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

The PRESIDENT: I remind honourable members that in private members' business the members concerned should be in the chamber to handle their bills. They want to introduce all this private members' business so they should be in the chamber to handle that business.


[Sitting suspended from 18:03 to 19:45]


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